Master of Death
by Shadow Rebirth
Summary: [Drabble.] I am Harry Potter, the Master of Death. I control the Deathly Hollows, not the other way around. I am needed. I am important. This is the way life is supposed to be.


When I was eleven I had my first brush with death.  
When I was twelve I had my first dance with death.  
When I was thirteen I ran from death.  
When I was fourteen I stumbled into death's arms.  
When I was fifteen I chased after death.  
When I was sixteen death began to court with me.  
When I was seventeen we became one and the same.

I can't see death the same way everyone else does, not anymore. They all see it as loss and pain and ending. All I can see in it is everything thrilling and passionate, everything worth living for. Without death—without me—we'd have nothing.

It took me a while to understand what had really happened. I knew I was the Master of Death, sure, but I didn't know what that meant. I thought it was power and magic—not life and death and light and darkness and everything in-between. I felt the energy in my veins, humming just beneath my skin and thought it was blood. I felt the electricity sparking in the air wherever I walked and thought it was magic. I ate and slept and _lived_, and I couldn't see what was right in front of me.

When I was twenty I fell in love with death.

Excitement is addicting, I think. It's that thrill that races up my spine when a cutting curse misses me by a few inches. It's the way my hands almost shake as I Apparate again and again, chasing down another dark wizard. It's sleeplessness that hits me at night thanks to all the plans running through my head. It's the hunt and the chase and the fight and the victory and the loss. It's everything I've in my entire life—everything my life has always been about.

When I was a kid, I was told I had "saving people thing", but that's never what it was. It was never about _them_, never about other people. It was about the _excitement_. About life and death and the struggle between the two. I hated to think about that, when I was a kid. Thinking like that was "wrong"; I was supposed to be the hero, the one who never wanted anyone to get hurt. Don't get me wrong, I do care about other people… Just not quite as much as I care about that feverous energy that courses through me at the very thought of a duel.

Perhaps I was actually eleven when I first fell in love with death. Love at first sight, as it were. It just took a few years for me to admit it and finally sign up with the ministry as a Hit-Wizard. Death has been my constant companion. Death is my life and my magic and my soul.

Sometimes I think I was destined to be the Master of Death. Or maybe that's not how it works. Maybe once I became the Master, I always was the Master—after all, why should something like death conform to a human's views of reality? I remember seeing something on Muggle television about time was more of a dimension than a linear concept like most people thought. Maybe death is like that too.

It doesn't matter either way. I am death and Death is me. I go where excitement and the eternal struggle are—or perhaps they follow me. I can not regret being what I am and doing what I do. I can ignore Ginny's tear-filled eyes as she begs me to stay in England instead of traipsing all over the world, eliminating threats to the public. I can look away from Ron's frown whenever I stop by at Christmas. I can pretend not to see the way Hermione won't quite look me in the eyes anymore.

I saved of all them once. More than once, actually. And I stopped Voldemort. I died to stop him. I killed to stop him. I deserve to be left alone, to be who I am.

I am the Master of Death, as I was always meant to be. I have always been this man that I am, and I will always be him. I am not a killer, not a murderer—I am _death_, a natural processes. And without death, life means nothing.

I am… I am The-Boy-Who-Lived and The-Man-Who-Slayed. This life is exactly what I've always been meant for. I- I am not a killer. I am not a monster. Without death, life is nothing.

I am Harry Potter, the Master of Death. I control the Deathly Hollows, not the other way around. I am needed. I am _important_. This is the way life is supposed to be.

I am the wielder of death, not the tool.

...Right?


End file.
